The current effort in watch styling is to develop timepieces having a thin look. Essential in achieving this thin look is to use watch cases which are either in fact thin or present the appearance of thinness.
One technique which has been used in the past to provide a watch case with a thin appearance when worn on the wrist has been to relocate rear case features which add to the case thickness inwardly away from the case periphery and out of view of the wearer when the watch is on the wrist. For example, FIG. 1 shows a watch case embodying this technique in that the rear side (wrist-side) 2a of the case 2 includes a rearwardly-projecting wall 2b disposed inwardly away from the periphery of the rear side to define as access opening 2c in the back of the case through which a movement/dial plate assembly can be inserted into the case with the dial plate seating on annular lip 2d. Although this type of case construction has proved successful in providing an appearance of thinness when the watch is worn, it suffers from the disadvantage that the size of the access opening in the rear side of the case is reduced and this, in turn, restricts the size of dial plate which can be inserted through the access opening. Since another present trend in watch styling is toward larger-sized dials in conjunction with thinner appearance, the case construction technique described does not provide optimum flexibility in watch styling.